"A Contemplative in Town"

I'm sure that many of you fantasize, as I do, when we are overwhelmed by daily life, about a place we can go where life is simple and slow, where we can relax and listen to the small, still voice that tells us what really matters. We cherish the idea that such a place can be found, so that when we go there, we'll be able to have the life we always wanted. It's more than a perpetual vacation fantasy. It's a yearning for a more spiritual way of being. Sitting on the freeway during the endless rush hour, feeling trapped by space and time, it's only natural to consider the alternatives. What would it be like to live free of such stress, we ask ourselves, conjuring up images of remote islands, cabins in the mountains, or even monasteries.

Religious contemplatives of many different traditions live in cloistered communities, where the quiet life assures inner peace. Or so we think. According to James Finley, who actually lived as a cloistered monk for five years, the monastery is no escape from the stress of daily life. "The next time you are caught in the frenetic energy of rush hour traffic," he writes, "it might be helpful to realize that even in monasteries there is a kind of cloistered rush hour, with monks running around with a lot of keys on their key rings trying to get a lot of important things finished before Vespers." Even contemplatives have trouble finding a contemplative life.

So if we put aside the fantasy that the spiritual life we want is somewhere else, and start looking at how to have a spiritual life where we are, what would it look like? That is the challenge for us urban creatures, driven by forces we cannot ignore and driving places we do not want to go. A harsh, urban environment like ours does not readily lend itself to spiritual wholeness. At least, that is what I concluded after someone nearly ran me down in the parking garage underneath my gym. The driver didn't even say she was sorry, as she raced from her car to the elevator, yoga mat in hand. "Namaste" it was not. The jarring contrast was a reminder that it's how we live all day long - in the parking garage as well as in the yoga class - that really matters. Spirituality cannot be compartmentalized.

It's the same idea as we heard earlier in the children's story. God is everywhere - in helping hands and in excitement before a vacation; in worry over a lost dog or in the last moments of life - in other words, in every place and time. Daily life is our spiritual life, and our practice is how we are living it.

Most of us know this instinctively. Our religious tradition teaches us that a ready compassion and a generous spirit are qualities to apply to everything we do, and that is how we try to live our faith. Our faith is practical, concerned with good works and good relationships. It, too, cannot be compartmentalized. We take it with us anywhere we go. Even on the freeway. How we drive reveals some fundamental truths about who we are.

Our own tradition has taught us well the importance of living our values, of integrating faith and action into daily life. But every one of us knows that we need to nurture our spirits with contemplative time as well, with walks on the beach or hikes in the mountains, with meditation or prayer, with yoga or running, whatever it is; we yearn for those moments that put us in touch with another kind of reality, one that heals us and calms us and gives us peace. A contemplative practice seeks this reality - the composure amid the many distractions, the silence after the noise, the peace beneath the surface.

Contemplative wisdom, whether it is Buddhist or Trappist, points to the same reality. It is not owned by one religion or another. This reality is there for all of us, whatever we do to find it. And every one of us has had a glimpse of it, one way or another.

Some of us have made a serious practice of meditation. This is the time-honored path to spiritual wholeness. But many of us have had to settle for something less disciplined.

According to James Finley, the actual practice is not as important as the contemplative frame of mind. What is important is to pay attention to the present moment. Just as we are tempted by the idea that it would be easier to live a spiritual life in some other place, so our minds wander away from the present time. The contemplative frame of mind stays in the present. It's such hard work staying in the present that it helps to set aside time just to do this.

I have never been able to sit in meditation for very long, but over the years, walking has become a meditative experience for me. Now that I walk my dog several times a day, I have the time for meditation, whether I want it or not. It's been good for me. My dog sometimes walks at an infuriatingly slow place. He sniffs, he stands still, he stares at the horizon. Some days I spend all my effort trying to get him to move faster. But other days I stop worrying about his pace and just go along at whatever speed he chooses. Then I let go of the need to move him from one place to the next, and settle in to being in this moment in time when nothing else is happening.

Some days we move along quickly, as he strides purposively towards some imagined dog destination. This is more like it, I think, assessing the exercise benefits as we go. We range far and wide, on the beach and in our neighborhood, an hour at a time.

I don't know how I find the time for these long walks in my day. Sometimes I can't. But those days that we walk are the better days now, with time for being wherever we are, for as long as we can. It has become contemplative time, time-out, calming me.

None of us would dispute the personal value of such quiet times. But we might not realize that contemplative experiences can make us more sensitive to others, more compassionate and aware of injustice. We think of contemplative practice as inward, out of touch with the rest of the world, just as we imagine contemplatives living in cloisters without rush hour or stress.

Far from it. Contemplative practice leads us to identify more readily with others. In James Finley's encounter with a table in a Santa Fe art gallery, we see how a contemplative frame of mind expands quickly to include others. Rather than see the table as a work of art, separate from the suffering of the people whose graffiti decorated it, he senses the presence of all those whose lives and suffering were connected to it.

Setting aside time for contemplative experience leads us to understand all time in a different way. We seek the wholeness of all reality in a single moment of present time. This leads us to the wholeness of all times, all places, all life. This is how we learn compassion. This is where we find peace. This is when we realize that a spiritual life is anywhere and everywhere we will ever go.

You may wonder whether we have the luxury of pursuing a contemplative life, given all that is going on in the world. It may be all we can do to keep the liberal religious point of view alive over the next few years. There is a frightening movement under way to obliterate values we cherish, and all of it in the name of God.

This is another sermon for another time, but this time what I want to say is that we will need every spiritual strength we can nurture if we are to prevail. We will need calm and composure to face those who oppose us. We will need the awareness that comes from being in the present moment, to be smart and strong. We will need compassion, so that we do not make the spiritual error of dehumanizing those who try to dehumanize us. And we will need our faith tradition, that teaches us that God is in daily life, in the common acts of helping and caring, in the human experience we all share.

We cannot afford to set aside the truths by which we live. We cannot live without experiencing the spiritual reality that nurtures and strengthens us, whatever the future holds. So let us reach deep into our faith, live fully in each moment, and find time to be at peace, so that we have faith and life and peace to give back to our world.

References used to prepare this sermon include "The Contemplative Heart," by James Finley (Notre Dame, IN: Sorin Books, 2000) and "Because Nothing Looks Like God," by Lawrence and Karen Kushner (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2004).